THE GAIRLOCH. 115 



You may now boast, like a true scholar, who looks only 

 at the past, of Diogenes and his tub and the comforts of 

 philosophy. 



* The Gairloch, as you will find by consulting your 

 map, is an arm of the sea on the western coast of Ross- 

 shire. Its length is perhaps somewhat more than eight 

 miles, its breadth varies from three to five. 'Where it 

 opens towards the sea the water is deep, and clear of 

 sunken rocks ; nearer its bottom there are several small 

 islands. The shores, with the exception of two or three 

 little sandy bays, are steep and rocky ; the surrounding 

 country is Highland in the extreme. The manse, beside 

 which I reside, and at which I am employed, is situated 

 on the northern shore, and about two hundred yards 

 from the sea. There rises behind it a flat moory hill, 

 speckled with large grey stones and patches of corn, 

 somewhat larger than beds of onions, only not quite so 

 regularly laid out. Farther away there is a little 

 scattered village, composed of such hovels as one com- 

 monly finds in the remote Highlands, and containing 

 from eighty to a hundred inhabitants, who are crofters 

 and fishermen. It is a fact that the Highlander of the 

 present day, and the Highlander of four hundred years 

 ago, live in huts of exactly the same construction: 

 and their mode of agriculture here has been quite as 

 stationary. 



' I must enable you to form an estimate of it. The 

 arable land is equally divided among all the families of 

 the village; a long brown moor which lies behind it 

 affords pasture to their cattle, of which every one has 

 an equal number, namely, two. The rents they pay 

 the proprietor, and which they derive from the herring 

 fishery, are of course also equal. There is neither horse 

 nor plough in the village, a long, crook-handled kind of 



